Art word of the day: Academic Style

The Turkish Bath, 1862 (100 kb); Oil on canvas on wood; Diameter 108 cm (42 1/2"); Musee du Louvre, Paris.

Academic Style is the highly polished, finely detailed style that was promoted by the conservative 19th-century academies. Most of it was worthy but boring. A lot of it was appallingly bad. Ingres was its supreme ad brilliant master.

Cumming, Robert (2001). Art: A Field Guide (p. 372). New York: Alfred A. Knopf